Fifth Dimension
by OneInTwain
Summary: For Aoihand's Multiverse Challenge - If you stand between two mirrors, there millions of millions of reflections. I just chose five. I'm not going to insist that you read, but if you do, please review. XD


**A very dear and awesome friend of mine did it, so I decided to try Aoihand's Multiverse Challenge, because both Aoihand and Madrabbit are superbeasts of awesomeness. If you want to try it, feel completely free--it isn't mine. :)**

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_1. Loyal_

Luffy had barely gotten over the shock of seeing the strange lady with the giant turtle, and he wasn't entirely through his brief period of mourning for 'Mr. Curlers', the man with the deadly saxophone. But Luffy was quick to bounce back from things, and now he was bouncing around the Straw Hats' new companion, asking questions at a mile a minute, while the Arabastian stuttered out fragments of answers and tried to fend off Sanji's equally distracting attention at the same time. Zoro was hanging around by the mast as Nami analyzed the weather ahead of the tiny ship, his dark eyes fixed suspiciously on the long, deadly-looking sword conspicuously hanging on the back of the former Baroque Works agent.

"So we're going to an island covered in sand?" Luffy asked, eyes sparkling. "Awesome! So awesome!"

"I never got your name," said Sanji, cutting off his captain's boisterous celebrations with a well-placed kick, "You were the partner of that lovely young woman Miss Wednesday, with all the beautiful black curls hair and—"

"--And the ability to snap your bones in half by touching you." Mr. 9 interrupted. He took off his dark sunglasses and pinched the bridge of his thin-bladed nose between thumb and forefinger as though to dispel a sudden headache.

"I suppose I have to be thankful to you for your assistance. My name is Kohza, and my princess has given me a vital mission…"

2. _Lackluster_

The metal on the sword Shanks gave him was dull. Not the edge itself—that was still so sharp that it would sometimes he would sometimes get cuts on his hands during fights—cuts that he didn't even remember getting, after the times when he was so angry that the world turned into something like burning ice. The blade would be a little gleamier then, and then it would fade again.

…But that was just fine, because Shanks had told him it wouldn't shine again until he was as strong as Shanks was, and that wouldn't happen for a while yet. Like… when he was really strong—as good as Shanks was when he had both arms—how strong he was would polish it or something.

Anyway… After Shanks gave him the sword he met the awesome guy—with green hair--that the marine tied up in his yard for some reason. When Luffy finally untied him, he flipped up on his hands and beat all the marines around him with an awesome kick-thing, and then he grabbed his boots with the black metal plates on them and smiled a bit and fell over.

All in all, that was an awesome way to start.

So next; a sniper, who kind of said she wouldn't join, but she didn't mean it. She looked really cool, with a lot of orange hair, and she said she could shoot an orange off a tree from fifty feet away. Obviously, she had to join the crew.

And that was good, even the nasty fight with the fish-man.

Then Luffy found out about devil fruits, because there was a boy with a long nose who hid in the bushes and then hit him really hard on the back of the head—he was funny, and his knees shook a lot. He also stretched, because his dad knew Shanks, so Usopp ate a devil fruit when he was little (Luffy asked if that was why his nose was long, and Usopp said no).

The fight with the cat-guy was fun. Luffy won.

Nami said they needed a navigator. Luffy said they needed a cook. So when they showed up at the big fishteraunt and one of the chefs told them that Sanji was the one who knew where they were going, because he could look at the sea and just know…

Sanji could cook really good, too. He joined.

Then there was the skeleton-reindeer-doctor-genius, but the scary old witch-doctor wouldn't tell them why he was so smart. It was a mystery.

Robin said she had a devil-fruit, but she wouldn't say what it did. All she would say was:

"I believe I have come to be enlightened, Captain-san."

Whatever the Human-Human fruit did, it had to be pretty cool, though, even if Robin wouldn't show him.

A long time went by, and then there was Franky, and it was awesome to see him fix their new ship, because he would work in a forest of hands and moving tools. He was funny, too, with his crooked nose and arm (he'd gotten slammed aside by a train, he said (and hadn't talked for a while after that, just staring back towards the water-city).

Then the Triangle, and the darkness, and the cyborg, tall and thin, with a warbling laugh, and Franky looked at him and breathed 'Super', and there was a long, long fight in the dark, and by the end Franky was already sketching out the plans for something called 'Battle Franky 36', because Brooke kept things inside him, and Franky kept forgetting to fight so he could watch the cyborg.

And it never felt quite right. But they were his Nakama, and he knew this was as right as it could possibly get.

3. _Egress_

Flight was a wonderful way to escape.

Not common, everyday flight—with the tugging lines and the cracking flag and Chopper manning the rudder. That had its own charm, but that was… well… every day. And sometimes a man just needed to get out there and board.

Of course, there was one obstacle in particular that was always a challenge; Nami would never let any of the crew off-deck for more than a few minutes. But all the boys knew that if they could get the navigator on her sky-board for a few seconds—or just get it out where she could see it—they would have all the free-time they wanted… until she wrenched her mind back to the ship and stopped ramping off clouds to make her usual perfect landing on the deck.

It was always a beautiful sight to see—all the non-devil-fruit users spiraling around the ship—the polished steel of the boards flashing in the sun... Zoro and Sanji circling and wheeling and bouncing off each other while Zoro cursed at Sanji_--('Ponytail! Get out of my way!' '—yeah, you wanna do that again, curly-brow?!'_) -- and Sanji, icy-blonde ponytail whipping in the wind behind him, sent out lightning-fast strings of violently rude sign language and made foul hand signs. Sanji was always faster, looping and spinning and flipping onto his hands to land kicks on the back of Zoro's head. And Zoro could always slam him and make him spin into ungraceful barrel-rolls. Luffy thought it was hilarious.

Naturally, Luffy was never let off the ship at all. Everyone knew that devil-fruit-users were completely useless in air—as heavy as lead, as soon as their feet left Deck. He would watch, though, and yell out tricks for the others to do. .

And then one day, near the floating city of Mocktown, they heard of a myth,.

The golden bell of Sea Island.

4. _Still_

The room was dark, full of dripping sounds, and smelled like something had been dumped in there to rot. Luckily enough, this didn't matter, since the owner of the old, creaky barn was completely insane, devoted to his work, and had no sense of smell whatsoever. He was also widely considered the brewer of the finest strike-me-dead booze with five-hundred miles of New York, so no one really wanted to complain (if you did, he wouldn't supply you anymore, and good brew was hard to come by).

Besides, his business partner may have been a real doll ('moll', some people might correct you; 'moll'. She's a mobster's girl, way I heard it—), but she was scary as all get-out, especially if you were running supplies for a speakeasy and you tried to pocket some scratch for yourself. The last man who tried that still couldn't walk straight, and he wouldn't tell anyone what happened to him. You didn't mess with the Franky-House still, because if you did, Robin Nico would follow you down a blind alley and give you the works with whatever weapon she carried that left spines snapped clean in two. Crazy Russian vamp.

They were only the suppliers, of course. All the real action was underground, no more than ten minutes drive away.

If you could get past the bouncers at the new Rain Dinners Café (and that was hard, 'cause they were all three crazy—some kind of professional Egyptian bodyguard or something) and into the actual restaurant, it was a pretty ritzy place. The owner—real nice dame, Nefertari something-or-other—would give you a look up and down, and ask a few questions in her polite, quiet voice, and then a flash of a pin and you were heading down the stairs into the cool cellar.

The second bouncer was a real hard-boiled type—steel mill worker, didn't speak much English. Always muttering in Japanese and swearing at that French cook from the jazz band. (Real cake-eater, the blonde guy; the ladies love a good trumpet-player.) Only two people that could even break those two up—Chopper (poor kid. Guess his grandmother didn't like him much) and that red-haired bear-cat Nami. Crazy Swedish vamp.

Now there was a woman you didn't want to get on the wrong side of. Threw around that poor African long-nose and their giant, afro-headed violinist like ragdolls. If it weren't for Luffy, the place would probably fall apart.

Thank God the kid came across from Brazil. He was a genius manager, no matter how much of a sap he was sometimes. Beat up those black-suit FBI men when they came after Nico Robin (called themselves the FB9. Strangest thing.) They called him Macaco, because he never really gave a last name and he was always jumping around like a monkey anyway. The rumors were everywhere about him swinging on chandeliers and climbing bare walls, and that he'd given himself that scar, and that the last man who touched the old straw hat was still in the hospital. He acted more like a crazy-drunk fella than most of the drunks did.

Just a strange thing, him being a teetotaler.

5. _Collapse_

Eventually, they just had to create a whole new rank out of nowhere, because if any one of the 'New Marines' was promoted above the others, the one of lowest rank would start throwing around death threats (or, worse, would just try to assassinate one of the others without warning) and any one of them was far too much for their 'superior' officers to handle.

So they had to be promoted somewhere.

Unfortunately, the further you went up the ranks of the marines, the less open positions there were. The Cipher Pol was considered, then turned down. There were too many of them to all go into one group, and anyway, only one or two of them could possibly be inconspicuous on command. The others couldn't pull off 'covert' if their lives depended on it, especially the youngest; the loud, impetuous teenager with the enormous appetite. He was too unpredictable, even with his swordsman friend to rein him in. The designated doctor was constantly fighting with the one who called himself 'captain', and one of them made trumpet-calls on his own arms when he got too excited.

Still. They were the monster weapons of the World Government, and within days of their first meeting, every ocean in the world was buzzing with the faces and the titles and the devilish powers that smashed islands and twisted reality to its very limits.

_ Those_ 12. The New World patrol. Unholy progeny of the Shichibukai and the CP9. The names (especially among the lower-ranking marines) were endless. But finally, one name rose from the murmuring masses across the world, and the newspaper scattered it to every island in the Government's iron grasp.

_ Black Holes_.

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**Notes:**

**1. Because Kohza would make an awesome BW agent, if he hadn't gotten twisted up in Crocodile's plot. It never made much sense to me that the princess herself left the kingdom. It turned out awesome, but it seems a little odd.**

**2. This was me putting all their names in Microsoft Word and mixing up their abilities randomly. I have no idea how Chopper would work, so I copped out. '^_^**

**3. Ponytail!Sanji is incredibly awesome. So is Mute!Sanji. And so is Skyboarder!Sanji. So I combined the three, and got a Skyboarder AU. XD I love those. (There's no such thing as an island on the blue sea! Ships just fall down and get thrown up by the Knock-Up stream! Stop dreaming, kid!)**

**4. The 20s have the best slang _ever_ and you know it's true, so don't deny it. I saw the SBS corner where Oda said the different nationalities of the Strawhats, and Robin the 'vamp' and Zoro the Japanese Steel Mill worker popped into my head, ready-made. Then Franky and his Still and it just... grew.**

**5. Supernova -- Supernova collapses -- Black Hole. Because the Supernova don't get enough love on this site (or at least, not enough non-slash love). They would make kick-$$ government agents.**

** Thanks for reading!**

** --AG1  
**


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